"Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps." It's a totally unnecessary sequel, it has absolutely nothing interesting or original to say about the 2008 financial crisis, it revolves around the love story of two shallow, mediocre characters (Shia LaBeouf and Carey Mulligan, it's way too long and "money never sleeps" makes no sense as a title or phrase. But you know what? I loved it anyway. So great to see Gordon Gekko again, Josh Brolin made a delightfully icy villain, and the whole thing was just really well photographed and told. And Eli Wallach's tiny supporting role is something to behold. Oliver Stone really could do something great again if he actually applied himself.
- "Waking Sleeping Beauty." A very fascinating documentary about the Disney renaissance in animation in the late 1980s, told by the animators themselves. It has a bit too much of the well-trodden internal Disney politics that we're all used to, but the animators are fascinating people, and if nothing else it reminded me just how great those movies were. Except "The Lion King." I always thought that one was just shit.
- "Stephen Tobolowsky's Birthday Party." A simple idea: the titular veteran character actor- you'll know him when you see him- hosting friends for his birthday birthday party and telling stories for 90 minutes. And it's enthralling. Give this guy a weekly HBO show, pronto.
- "Please Give." I'm not generally a huge Nicole Holofcener fan, but this was the best of her films. Catherine Keener and Oliver Platt play a New York couple who sell the antiques of recently dead people, and are waiting for the 90-year-old woman next door to pass away so they can buy her apartment. Rebecca Hall and Amanda Peet are both excellent as the elderly woman's angel and devil granddaughters; I'm still yet to not love Hall in anything.